Copyright timesnownews
After a turbulent year of workforce reductions, Microsoft is preparing to expand again. CEO Satya Nadella revealed that the company will begin adding roles in the coming months as it doubles down on artificial intelligence and automation to stay ahead of fierce competition. Speaking on investor Brad Gerstner’s BG2 podcast, Nadella said, “I will say we will grow our headcount, but the way I look at it is, that headcount we grow will grow with a lot more leverage than the headcount we had pre-AI.” During the financial year ending June 2025, Microsoft’s headcount stood at about 228,000 employees, down by more than 6,000 following multiple rounds of layoffs, according to CNBC. A month later, the tech giant shed another 9,000 positions as part of its restructuring efforts. AI At The Core Of Microsoft’s Transformation Nadella said Microsoft’s workforce is in the midst of a profound shift in how it operates. Employees, he noted, will “figure out how to do their jobs differently” as the company adapts to a new AI-driven era and contends with rivals such as Google and Meta. “It’s the unlearning and learning process that I think will take the next year or so, then the headcount growth will come with max leverage,” he explained. The CEO reaffirmed Microsoft’s commitment to giving every employee access to AI tools embedded within Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot, both powered by technologies from OpenAI and Anthropic. Nadella On The AI Shift In The Workplace Calling it a natural evolution in how businesses function, Nadella reflected on how technology has always reshaped corporate workflows. “To prepare forecasts, inter-office memos would circulate across multiple sites by fax, and then came email and Excel spreadsheets,” he said. He added, “Right now, any planning, any execution, starts with AI. You research with AI, you think with AI, you share with your colleagues, and what have you.” A Broader Industry Reset Microsoft’s announcement follows a wave of global layoffs in 2025, as companies recalibrated after pandemic-era overhiring. Amazon, Meta, Google, and Oracle each made major cuts, citing automation, slower growth, and the transition toward AI-first operations. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 100,000 tech jobs have been lost globally this year. In India, the shift has been equally visible, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) trimmed around 12,000 positions, or roughly 2 per cent of its workforce, as global technology firms moved toward AI-led productivity and in-house capability centres.
